Dawn
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08:21 Jul 05, 2025
IT was an avoidable tragedy. Another residential building collapsed in Karachi’s Lyari neighbourhood on Friday, resulting in a number of casualties, including women and children. Nine deaths had been reported as these words were being written. It was the third structural collapse incident in the city in two days. A day earlier, the third-floor roof of a building had collapsed in the Moosa Lane area, killing two; separately, an entire section of a six-storey building had collapsed under the weight of its rooftop water tank in Ghulam Hussain Qasim Quarters, thankfully without casualties. In each case, the buildings had been previously declared unsafe by the Sindh Building Control Authority, but evacuation orders were repeatedly ignored. A review of the city’s records reveals that there have been multiple structural collapse incidents in Karachi in recent years, with many involving condemned buildings. The question naturally arises: why has the SBCA been so helpless in enforcing its writ? The problem is a multif...